Sunday, February 16, 2014

They ain't dead yet

by digby

The Hill explains why progressive groups, unions and AARP and others are ramping up their efforts to get the Prsident to remove his proposal to cut Social Security from his budget. They're hearing stuff like this and they don't trust that the president isn't listening. For good reason:

“It just looks like caving to special interest groups. This is something he can cite as a hard choice and as standing up to his own base,” said Bob Bixby, the head of the Concord Coalition.

He said the Sanders letter is “all the more reason to keep it in” because Obama’s needs to distance himself from a “tax the rich” solution to the debt in order to foster centrist support for Democrats.

Bixby argued that because Obama already included the cuts in one budget, he cannot take them out without it looking purely political.

“He’s crossed the Rubicon. He can’t just take it out,” he said.

Another Democratic deficit hawk and former congressional aide said that removing the $250 billion in savings generated from chained CPI will make the new budget look worse in deficit terms than the 2013 budget.

“Even though it seems unlikely you will have a big deficit deal this year, the president has shown that he is at least willing to make a step in that direction.

“To that extent that the talks have failed, the question was who is being more reasonable? Reiterating his final offer to Speaker Boehner will allow the president to retain some degree of credibility,” the former aide said.

Yeah, he's got lots credibility with the deficit hawks. Which is the 1% and the Villagers. If he wants a legacy to be the first Democrat to propose cutting Social Security and presided over unparalleled long term unemployment while the most wealthy people in the country sucked up all the wealth, he'll let them have their way.

Meanwhile, we still have other Democrats playing a losing game:

Democrats say Obama could propose other ways to reduce the deficit that don’t cut entitlements.

Let's not and say he did, ok? This competition to see who can cut government spending more in a recession hasn't been working out too well.